


Four-Star General

by Kanthia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Dragon Ball, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Meta, so much meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:51:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3287573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanthia/pseuds/Kanthia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finally, someone who understands him.</p><p>(Steve Rogers watches Dragon Ball.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four-Star General

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came from (of all places) thinking about the whole Goku versus Superman thing, because in my mind they'd never fight, but instead find common ground over the desire to use their strength for good. I really wish I could have done this more justice.
> 
> MCU isn't my fandom (Dragon Ball is), so if there's anything glaringly wrong please let me know! Comments and kudos are always appreciated. You can find me yelling incoherent things over at [tumblr](http://kanthia.tumblr.com/).

Like all good things, it starts quite innocently: a few too many men’s interest magazines Natasha “accidentally” left in the Avengers tower washrooms, and Steve can’t resist catching up on culture whenever he can; a Buzzfeed article titled ‘ten things you’d never admit pump you up for a workout’; off-hand comments from strangers, on what’s worth watching; an internet meme not understood one too many times; a particularly fruitful (if exhausting) appearance at Comic-Con. Tony ends up in the common room one evening to find Steve with a literal mountain of DVDs.

“It’s not even a _good_ anime,” Tony whines, to Clint, over a gin and tonic. “He’s going to think it’s all trash-talking and terrible fight sequences. Like our lives, but worse. Why couldn’t he have gotten into a real classic, like _Cowboy Bebop_? Or even _One Piece_ , I could have dealt with _One Piece_.”

“Least it’s not _Naruto_ ,” Clint snickers. Through the kitchen wall, they can hear strained notes from the _Dragon Ball_ opening theme.

* * *

So a boy is picked up in the woods by a kindly old man. Fair enough. Steve’s read enough fairy tales to see where this is going, figures there’ll be a witch to lead him astray, and a wise old man to lead him back into the light, and a lesson learned in the end.

Only the witch turns out not to be a witch at all but a smart young lady with some strange technology, and the wise old man is kind of a creep, and there’s a pig and a floating cat and a guy tailing them named Yamcha. The internet directs him to a fable called _Journey to the West_ that makes the whole thing make even less sense. He was promised a martial arts show. He watches on, confused, utterly enthralled.

 Two days later, Steve stumbles into the kitchen at three in the morning when Tony just wanted to eat a bowl of cereal in peace, thank you very much.

“He did it,” Steve mumbles, glassy-eyed. “Goku must have done it. You know how he turned into a giant monkey during the full moon, when they were at Pilaf’s castle? He must have accidentally killed his grandpa.”

“Oh, my God,” Tony says.

* * *

There’s a whole lot of things for Steve to get caught up on. He could be doing productive things like learning to use Google properly, or trying Sriracha on everything, or watching _Fight Club_ , or fucking playing through _Ocarina of Time_ and not acting like picking up a Wiimote would give him a heart attack, but here he is slogging through all three hundred something episodes of the most unbelievably paced show ever to eat into a ten-year-old’s bedtime hours. Won’t even play _Pokemon_ while he’s doing it. Refuses to believe that a kid’s game can be played without one’s full attention.

“It’s not all like this,” Tony says, halfway through a bag of popcorn. “I promise. There’s way better stuff out there.” Steve’s right on the edge of his seat. He and Thor have a bet on who’s going to win the first Martial Arts tournament -- Steve on Goku, Thor on ‘the stout little fellow, the bald one’ -- and maybe Tony’s just a little embarrassed that this particular example of modern Earth pop culture is representing them all.

Steve and Thor are having an animated argument over whether Goku and Chi-Chi would make a good couple, given a few years.

“He’s right, you know,” Steve says, gesturing towards Oolong. “Goku isn’t quite human. He’s just too strong.”

Tony chokes on his Coke. Natasha laughs, and nobody knows at whom.

* * *

They don’t teach you this in school, but Steve Rogers is a boy scout at heart, empathetic to a fault. It’s the way he raised himself. Absurdly in touch with his own emotions. And if you give him any quarter, he’ll figure out truths about you that you didn’t even know yourself -- no serum to thank for that, just a particularly nauseatingly _good_ human being. He writes poetry when the thought strikes him. Who the hell _does_ that?

He’s hooked long before things take a turn for the dark around the Tien Shinhan saga. Maybe it was when Goku went toe-to-toe with an uncomfortable Nazi metaphor, and a bunch of mercenaries out to abuse the Dragon Balls for their own gain, no matter who got in their way. “Google said that Akira Toriyama, the author, never intended to give it any big meaning,” he says, eyes not leaving the screen, and Tony doesn’t correct him on anything he’s so obviously incorrect about. “Just wanted to make something that would make people happy. Like Goku. He just wants to make people happy.”

It’s a story that Steve understands: a very personal cycle of revenge. Tao kills Bora, Goku kills Tao, Tien Shinhan must kill Goku. The Crane and Turtle Hermits should have made their peace years ago, but broke apart over irreconcilable differences of how to define goodness and strength.

Krillin is dead that evening and King Piccolo comes screaming into their lives. Steve knows all about aliens declaring themselves king, promising chaos; feels Goku’s shame and rage at not being able to save a friend, deeply. If only Loki had been so kind as to offer hand-to-hand combat in exchange for the fate of the world. If only there were Dragon Balls to bring back the dead, and there are so many dead. 

* * *

There are other things to do: training, briefings, endless meetings, public appearances. Steve’s work keeps him busy. King Piccolo, defeated, dying, reincarnates himself in an egg, and Goku leaves to train at Kami’s lookout. Three years pass -- in the show, not in real life. Another Martial Arts tournament, Goku is a little taller, and there’s a strange alien named Junior in attendance.

“It’s Chi-Chi,” Steve gasps, at the introduction of the mysterious woman who’s full of rage at a forgotten promise. He calls Thor. When Goku proposes these two grown men, a king and a hero, raise an exultant shout that makes Tony wonder if the whole thing is some elaborate prank, if Natasha put them up to this.

Dragonball ends with Goku letting Piccolo go, and, well, that’s seventy-odd hours nobody’s ever getting back.

* * *

As it turns out, Goku’s not human at all. Steve’s shocked, and a little angry, at the sudden shift in tone; but mostly he’s a little heart-warmed by Goku naming his son after his grandfather.

He also starts to notice a trend.

“He makes his enemies his allies,” he says, as Goku and Piccolo fly off to save Gohan. “Have you noticed that? Yamcha, Tien, Piccolo -- he extends them goodwill, and shows them there’s no reason to be evil, and makes them his allies, and in time his friends.”

“That’s great,” says Tony, who had actually forgotten that Piccolo was a bad guy in the first place.

“I bet he makes this Raditz guy his ally, eventually. You don’t give up on family.”

Tony holds back any further comment. Can anything in this series be called a plot twist anymore? Goku sacrifices himself and Piccolo takes Gohan into the woods, and you know how these things go.

* * *

It’s a wonderful world, with an almost Shakespearean sense of good and evil, except for Goku, who is its arbitrator: good is good and evil is evil, but through small gestures he turns enemies to friends, and if it makes Steve a little heartsore it also gives him hope. His -- Steve’s -- is a world where problems have been left to fester for decades, and good and evil are sometimes hard to tell apart, where heroes are expected to be as conflicted and confused as the world they protect and serve. When you keep company with the likes of Natasha Romanoff and Tony Stark it can be hard to find someone who appreciates the daily struggle of finding good in one’s own endeavours.

But what a lovely story of trust and sacrifice: Piccolo’s heart healed by dying for Goku’s son, Tien Shinhan throwing himself into the line of fire for Chiaotzu, and the low-class son of a soldier fighting toe-to-toe with a prince, with goodness and love the source of his strength.

Goku begs Krillin to let Vegeta go. Steve thinks of Bucky, his heart full of grief.

* * *

Tony has a bet going with Clint about when Steve’s going to give up on the series. Clint honestly believes he’ll make it into the Buu Saga, around when Gohan goes to high school; Tony’s less forgiving, has his money on those twenty episodes where Goku fights Frieza and Namek slowly explodes. With money at stake the two of them start joining Steve in his nightly watches, and soon all six of them are together, arguing about whether a Saiyan’s bones could handle training in one hundred times Earth’s gravity.

(Of course, Tony’s certain that Toriyama had never intended the series to be watched by Asgardian royalty who had actually _experienced_ one hundred times Earth’s gravity.)

Steve takes it as a personal victory that Goku’s power is a direct product of his heart, as evidenced by Captain Ginyu’s failed takeover; Tony thinks it’s a stupid plot device, and Bruce wonders if it has deeper cultural meaning. There’s an Asgardian legend about self-resonance that Thor feels is relevant, and a death in the family brings Frieza to their doorstep. 

* * *

Here’s the thing about heroes.

You take a kid from Brooklyn and teach him that righteousness is a thing that exists, that it’s possible to do good and be good at the same time, that tomorrow is a thing we are all capable of fighting for, then you put him on ice and wake him up at a time where maybe that isn’t so true anymore. It’s a complicated world, with complicated women and men, and maybe he’ll find himself lacking the company of people who can meet him halfway. He was there for T.S. Eliot and the way everything meaningful died in the trenches during the Great War, sure -- but he wasn’t at all prepared for the way life goes on.

But he gets Goku, feels like Goku gets him. Google is full of people arguing about power levels and how Vegeta is better than Goku because he doesn’t let his feelings get in the way of his fighting, but did they miss the part where Vegeta pleaded for Goku’s forgiveness, his life bleeding out of him?

 _I can’t change who I am, not on the battlefield_ , Goku says, as though Steve is speaking through him. _My feelings are my guide. Besides, everyone deserves a chance to change their ways, just like you had._ These truths should be self-evident. Nobody is as cold-hearted as they make themselves out to be.

It’s late, very late, when Krillin dies on Namek. Thor has gone somewhere with Bruce, and Clint and Natasha are asleep. Tony’s half-awake, dreaming up a way to implant oxygen-hungry crystals into the lungs of deep-sea divers, when he becomes aware that Steve is crying.

Turns out when they beefed up his colon to extract extra energy from waste products, and his liver to turn poisons into carbohydrates, they forgot to take out his tear ducts. Steve’s weeping. Goku’s glowing gold, throwing light into dark places.

* * *

_"I am the hope of the universe. I am the answer to all living things that cry out for peace. I am protector of the innocent. I am the light in the darkness. I am truth. Ally to good! Nightmare to you!"_

* * *

He’s been there, felt rage boil over until hurt became a thing that needed to be inflicted upon others. Goku’s rage is clear and bright and meaningful. Yeah, it’s a little cheesy, but isn’t life, sometimes? Goku defeats Frieza, Trunks comes from the future with a warning, there are androids and Cell to deal with, Gohan learns to use the pain of loss. Goku dies, again -- for good this time, citing all the dangers he’s brought upon his loved ones -- and that’s not a decision Steve thinks he would ever be brave enough to make.

Clint wins the bet; once Goku’s out of the picture, Steve more or less loses interest.  He and Goku were different people all along, and if this was Gohan’s story in the end, well, maybe it just means he himself has a different direction to go.

(Turns out, according to Google, that the story was supposed to wrap up at the end of the Cell Saga. He’s not all that surprised.)

Weeks later, they drag a wounded and confused Bucky out of the deep, and he’s huddled up on the couch in the common room, his head in Steve’s lap, shaking. Their world is not an easy place to be.

“How do you do it, Steve?” He’s growling through clenched teeth. “How do you put up with this?”

“Here, let me show you.” And he puts on episode 1, _The Secret of the Dragon Ball_ s.

**Author's Note:**

>  _I can't do it. Sorry. See, I have this nasty habit of following my heart._ (Goku, to Frieza)


End file.
